Clinton Avenue
by Shelby King
Grandma’s house is motley sunset, a block of sand with red and pink geraniums
in its hair. Everyone on our busy street stops
to greet the bridge atop the yard’s gravel creek.
I negotiate the tree-who-nobody-knows-its-name
for a leg up, but I can’t see much further than
the house across the street. The one where the man in blue grabbed and shook
the woman with black hair,
like he was being electrocuted.
Once I was the getaway car. Then I watched the blanketed windows. Block grenade
Until one day, they left.
Yesterday, I went to pull the cans from the curb. A boy named
Luis stopped mid-jog. We hugged for a long time.
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